In general, properties in Turkey are of Freehold type.

Property prices have been steadily increasing. You can find a real estate from £ 20,000 up to a couple of hundred thousand GBPs. The price depends on the location of the property, the quality of the material used in construction, architectural features of the property, ease of transportation, economic activities in the region, and availability of nearby services etc.

There is a wide range of options such as detached, semi-detached and terraced houses, purpose-built flats, cottages and luxury villas. Quality residential buildings are available everywhere in Turkey .

Foreigners seeking for real estate can contact either real estate agencies or the owners directly. They can also find property advertisements in newspapers published in Turkey .

Unfortunately, we cannot provide you with the list of officially recommended real estate agents since real estate business is not a regulated business.

However, you can find hundreds of real estate agents' web-pages in English if you search for �real estate agents Turkey � by means of any search engines such as www.google.com, www.msn.com and www.yahoo.com etc.

A search has been made for you and some of the web sites found are presented below in no particular order (It is only provided for your convenience and we will not take any responsibility for their contents):

It is not compulsory to hire a solicitor. However, since there are lots of transactions for buying a property and some steps are very important, a careful consumer will consult a solicitor who can provide legal and financial advice about all issues including a power of attorney.

Please note that solicitors are privileged professionals to gather any information on

• Property official records at TAPU offices,
• Company registration records at Chambers of Commerce
• Financial viability of a company
• How to find out who owns a property
• Whether a property had been built properly and all relevant licenses had been gathered

Furthermore, you may not need a translator if you are using a good English-speaking solicitor.

Moreover, a good solicitor can do all search and checks well for you to secure your rights.

In addition, please bear in mind that an authorised solicitor cannot breach the laws and regulations. Otherwise, the Barr he has been registered with abolishes his license and afterwards he can never work as a solicitor.

Law offices and legal partnerships in Turkey provide interested parties with good and comparatively much cheaper legal services.

Please visit our investment pages where you can find lots of Turkish law offices and partnerships, which employ hundreds of English-speaking lawyers and whose web pages are in English language. Please note that most of the listed companies have connections with foreign law companies including those in the UK as well as the local independent lawyers in Turkey.

Furthermore, you can contact lawyers who work independently. The following web pages and the foreign missions in Turkey provide the lists of English-speaking independent Turkish solicitors:

www.britishembassy.gov.uk ,

ankara.usembassy.gov/list_of_attorneys.html,

British Missions in Turkey

Please note that you can double check whether the solicitor you are using is an authorised solicitor at www.barobirlik.org.tr/eng/. Please note that this search engine is sensitive to Turkish characters i, ü, ö, s, ç, g.

So as to get information on other English speaking professionals, you can contact The Turkish British Chamber of Commerce and Industry via www.tbcci.org and you can get hundreds of company names from this organisation.

There are several steps to be followed in buying a property. That's why it is suggested that you appoint someone or an agent to deal with all necessary transactions by means of a legal document called �Power of Attorney� for buying property. This should be done in the presence of a Notary-Public.

A Principal (the person who delegates his authority) can give an Agent broad legal authority, or very limited authority. The Power of Attorney is frequently used to help in the event of a Principal's illness or disability or in legal transactions where the principal cannot be present to sign necessary legal documents.

Under what conditions and how long a Power of Attorney shall be in force and end should be clearly defined.

A Power of Attorney can be used to make an Agent

• Buy, sell or rent out your property,
• Manage your property,
• Conduct your banking transactions,
• Invest or make use of your money on behalf you,
• Make legal claims and conduct litigation or
• Carry out tax matters.

The conditions such as the duration of validity, actions that the agent can take and cannot take etc. should be stated clearly in those documents.

The candidate agent should be researched well. If he/she is a solicitor, it might be useful to cross check whether he/she is a member of the local Lawyers' Barr Association. Or, if you find someone from other professions, you can ask for CV and a professional reference letter.

Please note that without a trustworthy Agent, a Power of Attorney becomes a dangerous legal instrument.

You may appoint multiple Agents. If you appoint two or more Agents, you must decide whether they must act together in making decisions involving your affairs, or whether each can act separately. Allowing your Agents to act separately may ensure that an Agent is always available to act for you. But it may also result in confusion and disagreements if the Agents do not communicate with each other.

The Agent appointed by means of a Power of Attorney is your representative. As long as you have the legal capacity to make decisions, you can direct your Agent to behave the way you wish.

The Agent is obliged to act for the sake of your interests and is supposed to avoid any "self-dealing".

Money should be kept in a separate bank account for the benefit of the Principal. Agents must also keep accurate financial records of their activities, and provide complete and periodic accountings for all money and property coming into your possession.

A Power of Attorney can be abused, and a dishonest Agent may use a Power of Attorney to transfer your assets to himself. That is why, it is very important to appoint an Agent who is completely trustworthy and to require the Agent to provide you with complete and periodic reports.

If your agent is a professional accredited by an occupational association, you should complain about him/her against that association in case of an abuse.

Please also note that you can apply to public attorneys in local justice courts (‘Adliye Sarayi’ in Turkish.) and complain about any abuse or fraud if you are able to document the case.

Monitoring the actions of your agent is your own responsibility. It is therefore very important that your Agent keeps accurate records of all transactions on behalf of you.

You may revoke the Power of Attorney at any time, in the same way in which it was issued. In other words you should contact the Notary Public in Turkey or Turkish Consulate General in London to revoke the Power of Attorney. In that case, you should send a written notice to your Agent and say that you are revoking the Power of Attorney. Do not forget to request the return of all copies of your Power of Attorney. You should also notify your bank or other financial institutions where your Agent is likely to use the Power of Attorney that it is no longer valid.

You don't have to go to Turkey to prepare a Power of Attorney. You can have it prepared in UK. In that case, please make sure that it is legalised so that it can be �an acceptable/valid document' in Turkey.

Legalisation simply means confirming that a signature, seal or stamp appearing on a document is genuine. The signatures or seals of British public officials such as solicitors, notaries public, registrars on certain documents from the United Kingdom have to be confirmed before those documents can be accepted in Turkey.

On the other hand, many types of documents can be apostilled by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (www.fco.gov.uk/legalisation) and are exempt from certification by the Consulate General.

For further information on ‘legalisation’, please visit the web page of the Turkish Consulate General in London.

Real Estate Investment Trust Funds are one of the institutions which have the most expertise in assessing the real estate issues. You can invest in either those funds or the projects they developed.

Real estate investment trusts (REIT) are capital market institutions established which manage portfolios composed of real estates, capital market instruments, capital market instruments backed with real estate and real estate development projects. Similar to other financial investment trusts, they are established in the form of joint-stock corporations and they are legal entities. Their capital is registered and they issue shares. Their shares have to be issued in return for cash and quoted, traded and priced at a stock exchange. REIT's are exempt from the Corporation Tax which is quite an important incentive for their development.

The Association of Real Estate Investment Companies (GYODER) holds real estate summits since 2000. The fifth Real Estate Summit was held at Ciragan Palace in Istanbul on 9-10 May 2005, with increasing interest. The next summit will be held in Istanbul on 2-3 May 2006.

For further information on the system of REITs, please have a look at

The web addresses of the REITs in Turkey are presented below.

Currently, there are no (universal) mortgage companies in Turkey . However, the Mortgage bill is being reviewed by the Parliament and is expected to be enacted this year.

You are strongly advised to have the contracts you are to sign with a seller

• translated by a Sworn-translator and
• ratified by a notary public

If you have difficulty in finding a local sworn-translator, you can ask a notary-public to give you a list of translation professionals they use.

The Appraisal Companies are professional institutions which employ appraisers to determine values of real estates by gathering, analyzing, and applying relevant information with respect to the general accepted international principles of valuation. These companies are regulated and supervised by the Capital Markets Board of Turkey.

Please visit the web page of Capital Markets Board to gather the list of those companies.

In order to buy a property in Turkey, you can re-mortgage your property in the UK. In addition, if you can provide Turkish financial organisations with acceptable financial guarantees such as a bank guarantee letter, etc those institutions can supply you with a long-term loan. However, please note that in case you have a financial trouble in paying back the loan, the relevant company may confiscate the property on finance.

If you are interested in using a loan from a Turkish bank, you are advised to visit the web pages of the Turkish banks shown at our banking page.